A detailed look at the game of Dungeons & Dragons and all things related

Friday, April 4, 2014

The Ill-Fated Rescue Attempt

Our party was made up of a group of old friends with a new
friend to keep things fresh. So for us,
even when we were playing a more evil alignment campaign, we (almost) always
tried to save our party members. Often
it worked, this time it really didn't.

Our party was fighter heavy with three melee types (two
fighters and a rogue), a bard, and a wizard.
No cleric and thus no healing. We
were making our way room-to-room through a very frustrating dungeon with lots
of dead ends and nasty traps. We had just picked up again after having to take
a few weeks off so we were all raring to go, which is why events may have
happened as they did. We rushed into the
next room which was square and had a stone path down the middle with 10’ deep
pits of fire to either side. At the far end of the stone path was a large urn. We
had encountered a similar room earlier in the dungeon and we knew that if we opened
the urn it would release a wraith. However, we needed to defeat that wraith to
obtain a piece of the key for the door out of the dungeon. So, we jumped into the battle with the wraith first and took
the time to actually look at our character sheets second. That’s when we realized that all of us, with
the exception of the rogue, only had 10-20 hit points left from the previous
battle. Also, the wizard had no leveled spells left so he was fighting with
cantrips and staying out of the way. Mistake number 1.

The Dwarf and Half-Elf fighters along with the melee rogue
engaged the wraith, while the bard and wizard held back. During the second round, the wraith accessed
a hidden compartment to reveal a lever in the wall. We knew from the previous
encounter that wraiths pulling levers would release unknown terrors but despite
our best efforts he managed to pull the lever. Mistake number 2.

Suddenly, the floor broke into 5’ squares and started to shift/shuffle
around the room, mixing with the fire pits like a carnival ride. All of us had to make Dexterity checks to
keep our footing and we all passed with the exception of the Halfling
bard. He stumbled and fell into a pit of
fire taking enough damage to knock him unconscious while still burning. Mistake
number 3.

The wizard rushed over to help while the other PCs continued
to fight. He could not jump down into
the pit directly as he didn't have enough hit points to survive; however, he
used his mage hand to try and tie a rope around the Halfling and pull him out. All he needed to succeed was for the rope to
pass its saving throw vs. the fire. It didn’t.
Mistake number 4.

The Drow rogue, forcing interest at this point, took out his Wand of Wonder that had been found earlier and pointed it at the Halfling and
said ‘Wuba-Wuba’. The wand transformed into
a Lyre of Building and when played would allow the player to do the work of 100
men. The Drow, not trained in musical
instruments at all, took a breath and began to play. He rolled a 1 which caused
a string to break and caused the lyre to lose all of its magical properties.
Mistake number 5.

Meanwhile down in the pit, the Halfling had failed the first
of his death saving throws. The Dwarf then heroically raced across the room and
leaped into the pit with the intention of throwing the Halfling out to safety. For his gallantry he rolled a 1. The Halfling was scooped up, lifted, and
hurled…straight into the wall which he bounced off of and landed back into the
fire. Mistake number 6.

After that, the Halfling failed the second death saving
throw. Then the wizard finally figured out something helpful and used Ray of
Frost to put out the fire in the pit. This allowed the Dwarf and wizard to tie
a rope on the poor Halfling and get him out of the pit with no more damage. In the next round, the fighters managed to
kill the wraith just after the Halfling failed his third death saving
throw.